Web services allow applications to communicate and share information across the Internet, regardless of operating system or programming language. Examples of web services, and the information and functionality they provide, include the following:
User authentication and authorization
Credit card validation
Financial markets services that return stock prices associated with specified ticker symbols
Purchasing services that allow users to order products online
Information services that provide news or other information types based on a selected interest, location, or other personal information
By providing functionality as a service that a web page connects to and uses as needed, web services give developers and service providers greater flexibility in designing and deploying powerful, distributed applications.
Web services consist of the following basic components:
Service publishers provide hosted applications and make them available for use. Web services can be provided either for free, or as a fee-based service.
Service brokers maintain a registry of service providers with descriptions of service offerings and links to their applications.
Service consumers are the web pages that access and use the remote web service.
This section covers the following conceptual topics: